TWO Newport schools are paving the way on digital skills learning for pupils after being chosen by the Welsh Government as pioneer projects.

St Julian's Primary and Bassaleg School have been chosen to support the launch of the first element of the new curriculum for Wales - the Digital Competence Framework.

Changes to the curriculum mean that, from now on, digital skills will be rolled out through all parts of a pupil’s schooling, and not just isolated to specific ICT or computer science classes.

Luke Mansfield, the deputy head teacher at St Julian’s, said: “The development of the Digital Competence Framework is such a great step forward for Welsh education and the Welsh Government should be applauded for placing the development of our learners’ digital skills as such a high priority.

“At St Julian’s Primary, we began by simply providing staff with an opportunity to read through the framework, thinking about the elements that we already cover across our existing curriculum and areas that we need to develop.

“Following that, we completed a staff audit to identify training needs, and also an equipment audit to consider how our existing devices could best be utilised to meet the requirements of the DCF."

The Digital Competence Framework is now available to all schools and follows two independent reviews that recommended changes.

The framework, which was launched this month, is part of a new curriculum which will be fully implemented in 2021.

Up until July 2017, schools and settings will be responsible for familiarising themselves with the framework and will need to discuss how the framework can be translated into practice.

Sonny Singh, digital pioneer at Bassaleg School, said: “Our students now live and breathe in a digital environment so it is only natural that we want to help them develop and enhance those skills, but also educate them to use them safely.

"We often hear teachers say that the pupils are two steps ahead of them when using computers – that may be true but often what the pupils don’t have is the contextual knowledge, when to share data and when to not share information for example – a key component of the framework and one that until now has not been considered as fully as it should.”